All at once, Gilgamesh was looming over Pix, her vacuous, imbecilic face the sole focus of his mounting fury. When he spoke, several people in the crowd jerked to attention. Anyone who had ever heard those harmonics in a madboy’s voice never forgot the experience. “You say she drove a clank straight at you. That was a pretty rotten thing to do.”
Pix nodded. If parts of her brain were screaming at her to shut up, the rest of it was apparently too stupid to listen. “Oh, yeah. Well, we’re just lucky our plan worked so well. Who knows what she would have done if we’d let her stay, ya know? Just can’t trust that kind, I always say.” She seemed to realize that she was talking to “that kind” right now. A touch of worry crossed her face, but was quickly wiped away as a sly look took its place. “So... was there a reward?”
No one—not even DuPree, saw Gil’s hand move, but suddenly there was a vicious-looking pistol jammed against Pix’s face. It began to hum as a wheel on the side slowly gathered speed.
“A reward? For sending her to her death? And you’re telling me that she purposefully set some kind of monster on a group of helpless people? You’re lying! She would never have done that! Where is she?”
Pix looked up into Gil’s face and saw death staring back. She dropped to her knees in fear, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. The pupils of Gil’s eyes almost vanished in his madness. His thumb flicked a toggle on the gun and—
Abner grabbed Gil and tried to swing him about. It was like trying to move an iron statue, but it did have the desired effect of dragging Gil’s attention away from Pix, and fixing it on himself. “Stop!” Abner yelled. “Listen to me! That isn’t what happened!”
DuPree pouted. Things had just been getting interesting. “Hey!” She barked. “Who gave you permission to—”
“Shut up!” Abner didn’t even look at her. He stood glaring at Gil. “Listen!” He insisted.
Without taking his eyes off Abner, Gil shot out his hand and plucked a knife from the air—just before it hit the man’s back. In the same motion, he snapped the knife back at DuPree, where it buried itself in her hat.
“Talk.” Gil’s voice shook.
“These are the Wastelands!” Abner explained. “We have to be wary or we’d be dead! Yes, we met this girl, and yes, she wanted to travel with us, and yes, we sent her away. She scared the hell out of us! But the attack—that clank—it had nothing to do with her. She went off to the east. It came from the north. It just ripped into us, but she came back and stopped it with that damn big gun of hers. She died saving us. Pix here is trying to take credit for something that just happened, because she knows you’re looking for this person and she’s dumb and scared and hoping for a reward!”
DuPree sneered. “Pretty cold, after the girl saved you.”
Abner shrugged. “Yeah? Well, so we’re circus people,” he said flatly. “Grifting is one of the ways we survive. But she did save us, and we buried her like she was one of our own.”
Gil stared. His face was still terrible to look at, but the madness had receded. Now, he was just terribly quiet, but his voice was still dangerous. “I don’t want to believe either of you.” He took a deep breath and studied Abner’s face. “But your story—that—it’s what she would have done. You will show me the place where you say this happened.”
Abner looked worried. “But I... I can’t. It’s way back—” A large set of steel hands closed upon his arms and lifted him from the ground. Gil leaned into his terrified face.
“...and if you’re playing me false, if you people did do something to her, I’ll give you to Captain DuPree. Along with everyone else here.”
A small gasp of wonder and delight came from Bangladesh. “Really?” she breathed, “Honest?”
Gil surveyed the crowd. “Every single one of them.” He turned back to Abner. “Unless you tell me otherwise right now.”
Abner looked like a man caught in a trap. “She’s there,” he whispered.
Gil nodded and turned around. At his signal, the clanks snapped to attention, and began to march back to the dirigible.
DuPree sighed and turned to Pix, who stood stupefied, gaping first at the retreating Gil, then at the captive Abner, then back again. She punched the girl’s arm. “Well, you heard the cranky man, we gotta go. Don’t worry, girlie, if your boyfriend here is telling the truth, he’ll be back.”
This seemed to shake Abner free of his shock. “Um... I’m not actually her—” he began.
“Abner!” Pix growled as she grabbed him by the lapels. “Shut up!” She kissed him fiercely before spinning away. She only took two steps before she spun about again. Tears were in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “You’d better come back in one piece,” she threatened, “Or I’ll find you, you idiot! Don’t forget!”
Abner blinked in astonishment, but he shut up. Less then two minutes later, the airship was moving off, its engines roaring. The audience members were vanishing fast—casting nervous glances at the circus and the sky as they went.
Payne grabbed the closest of the performers—a handsome, dark-haired young man in his mid-twenties. “Lars, pass the word—quietly. I want us packed and on the road in ten minutes.”
Lars looked shocked. “But it’s dark! And we’re paid up here for the next two days!”
Others who had heard this exchange started to join in, but Payne cut them off. “I want us gone before the townies realize that we brought that airship here.”
The implications of this sank in. Herr Rasmussin[14] nodded briskly, reached into his coat, and with a snap, unfolded his dance-master’s cane. “Jig time!” he called out urgently. Everyone groaned.
The old campsite by the river was quiet now. The heaps of clank parts had cooled where they fell. The places where the earth had been torn showed raw, the grass still trampled. Where trees had snapped, the wounds were still bright yellow and oozing sap.
The main body of the crab clank was recognizable, but the interior had been almost completely burned and fused. The legs of the clank had managed to fall in an almost artistic pattern, so the modest mound of the grave lay within an encircling corral of red enameled metal. A small sapling had been planted on the mound, and leaning against it was a strange-looking gun, obviously broken. Gil stood silently for several minutes, fingering one of the tree’s bright green leaves.
Abner fretted. Finally, he could take it no longer. He had to say something. “That’s... the tree is something... One of the girls... that’s what they do in her village when someone dies. We didn’t know what your... um, what she would have liked.”
Gil nodded. “Dig it up.”
Abner looked shocked. “What?”
Captain DuPree smiled evilly at him as the Wulfenbach clank that stood nearby reached around and unsnapped a long shovel from the rack on its back. “What’s the matter, pal? Didn’t think we’d do that, did you? Say, maybe I’ll get to kill you after all!”
The clank dug quickly and efficiently, and it was only a few minutes before DuPree called a halt.
She hopped directly into the grave, and pulled aside the canvas winding sheet the clank had uncovered. A horrifically strong odor of burnt meat burst forth. Abner backed away, his hand over his lower face.
DuPree chortled and slipped the collar of her sweater over her nose and mouth. “Whoo! Damn! You can’t beat home cooking!”
14
By now, the keen student of Spark history will be asking, “Is this the same Count Leovanovitch Pieotre Rasmussin who was responsible for the destruction of the Royal Palace of St. Petersburg through the cunning use of excessive syncopated dancing, which caused a resonance disaster after the Tsar seduced his wife, Zolenka? The answer is, we don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise us.